Totally random Gods question.

[Ironpig II]

Is it ever explained (canonically?) why the gods/pantheons in the fantasy element are different from those in the rifts books?

[kiralon]

Wrong way around, the question is why are the gods in the rifts books different.
but not that I remember on the fantasy side of things

[Library Ogre]

Is it ever explained (canonically?) why the gods/pantheons in the fantasy element are different from those in the rifts books?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Like, why do the gods in D&G have divine abilities, but the ones in Pantheons of the Megaverse do not? That's because they hadn't come up with divine abilities in PotM, so they showed up in D&G, and you can backfit them onto PotM, if you like.

If you're wondering why the pantheons are different... well, different people worship different gods. The pantheons of PF are the ones that are worshiped there. The pantheons of PotM are rough approximations and alternate versions of deities worshiped around the Megaverse.

[Ironpig II]

Is it ever explained (canonically?) why the gods/pantheons in the fantasy element are different from those in the rifts books?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Like, why do the gods in D&G have divine abilities, but the ones in Pantheons of the Megaverse do not? That's because they hadn't come up with divine abilities in PotM, so they showed up in D&G, and you can backfit them onto PotM, if you like.

If you're wondering why the pantheons are different... well, different people worship different gods. The pantheons of PF are the ones that are worshiped there. The pantheons of PotM are rough approximations and alternate versions of deities worshiped around the Megaverse.

i guess i'm focused on Norse/Northern and Egyptian/Light&Dark pantheons...but there are others. you know...the similar, but different.
i get what you're saying, but are you also saying Od and Odin are two separate gods that could somehow meet each other and play God Pickleball?

in all seriousness i've always just wondered why Od/Odin we so similar..

[jaymz]

I think he is saying Odin is the "Earth" version while Od is the "Palladium" version and because the books were written at separate times the differences are because of Palladium Books' poor track record of making sure consistency between books occurs.

I would just adjust as needed, carry on, and not overthink it too much.

[Library Ogre]

i guess i'm focused on Norse/Northern and Egyptian/Light&Dark pantheons...but there are others. you know...the similar, but different.
i get what you're saying, but are you also saying Od and Odin are two separate gods that could somehow meet each other and play God Pickleball?

in all seriousness i've always just wondered why Od/Odin we so similar..

At a bet? They started out more or less the same, with slightly different names. But, then, D&G was written and they were further diverged. For the Northern Pantheon, I tend to prefer that they're different deities, just with some similarity of history... an amazing coincidence, but a coincidence, nonetheless.

The other option is that they're the same deity, but with different names and mythologies on different worlds. I tend to take this route with the Egyptian pantheon, partially because their names are identical and they're presented as being the same. So, local religions of Horus will all have their various holy spots, and you might have a hundred different dimensions where they can point to the precise location where Set tore apart the body of Osiris... and all of them are true.

[kiralon]

It would be because they tend to be asshats
How much of what happens to any of the major pantheons would have happened if they could keep their (genital of choice) in their pants.
also
Odin says (While drunk at a party), wouldn't it be **** funny to tell those mortals one thing, and those over another thing, so we can watch them fight.

Mortals were the first reality tv, and the directors(gods) always wanted more drama.

[taalismn]

Mortals were the first reality tv, and the directors(gods) always wanted more drama.

I'll bet forty quatlus on that!

[Borast]

Well, one way to think about it is that on the PF world, the Old Ones created the gods as their first slav...ah, servants.

The gods in the rest of the megaverse are not their creations?

[Axelmania]

One thing we should note about Rifts is that the Rifts Africa gods (egyptian) weren't originally written with deific powers but gained them in D*G (presumably the same deities, probably some minor stat tweaks if I looked for them) so it's entirely probably that other Rifts Gods (Vampire Kingdoms, England, South America) are meant to gain them too.

The first Rifts publication I can recall them being used in is Federation of Magic since the Three Lords of Magic have some. They're kinda lesser gods though since they don't have the whole "all of them" approach D*G gives, so the LoM of Dweomer are probably closer in power to a Demon Prince or lesser Lord of Dyval on an individual level.

The canon Rifter stats for the Russian Gods all involve deific powers which further supports the idea of retroactively giving the early-published gods (and perhaps even some AIs) access to deific powers.

I don't think the Vampire Intelligence has ever been published in the PF line so I don't know if they deserve deific powers or not...

Pg 208-216 of Western Empire (WB7) only covers the basic types (master/secondary/wild) much like the Nightbane main book did, and unlike Shadows of Light I don't the PF line got around to covering Vampire Intelligences distinctly like BTS/Rifts/NB did.

WE207 does mention consulting dragons and gods for details about alien intelligences though, so perhaps GMs who don't have non-PF books are meant to use the random AI generation tables for making vampire intelligences?

In that case they would have access to deific powers, since D+G allows it for AIs.

I don't think post D+G tables for AIs make further reference to that though. I don't remember that being the case in Dark Conversions or in VKrevised which are I think the only two Rifts books to publish AIs in post-D&G.

Given that deific powers were worked into FoM/Russians plus the DBs for Hades/Dyval (for Princes/NewLords) this makes me think that the omission could indicate a lack of deific powers for rifts AIs like Vamps/Zllyphan/Splugorth but I'm not 100% sure.

I think he is saying Odin is the "Earth" version while Od is the "Palladium" version and because the books were written at separate times the differences are because of Palladium Books' poor track record of making sure consistency between books occurs.

The weird thing about that is:

1) Od and the Northern Gods were present in the 1st ed Palladium RPG
2) the IRL Pantheon of Light and Dark from Palladium RPG were used in Rifts Africa
3) when CJ wrote Pantheons, he didn't merely have the new gods interacting with each other, there's actually a couple (albeit rare) notes about their relationships with the LAD pantheon from PRPG/Africa; not to mention the Demon/Dyval lords from PRPG/CB

My guess though since CJ didn't reference any of the PRPG gods aside from CB/Africa is that he was consulting KS' conversions into those two books, but not any of the other original material which hadn't been adapted to MDC-era prior to Dragons and Gods, which came after Pantheons.